Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Good morning!
>I did arrange to go to my mother’s yard this weekend. We can do some simple sequences, she has never been there. I was planning on using it for our teeter tour but we are a ways away from that.>>
That s perfect!
>I really like your idea of a simple one – lower level than we are. Ooh that gave me an idea 😉>
Yay! I love running at a lower level – it takes all the pressure off of baby dogs because the environment is hard enough. And we always learn something, plus I never end up having to explain why I don’t want to do 15 threadle wraps in a row with a baby whippet LOL!!! I am long past the days where I wanted all of my dogs to get to masters level seminars as quickly as possible. Novice is FUN!!!! My current favorite young dog instructor is Casey Keller. She is an up-and-coming seminar presenter, and she has experience with Border Collies but also small dogs (Sheltie and Cocker Spaniel). We’ve had a grand time at 3 of her baby dog seminars now, and I am *picky* about seminars LOL!!!!
>For these reps I left the collar no collar out completely. I wanted to focus on handling properly. >
Perfectly fine! Those engagement games are mentally hard for the dogs, and they do not need to be played every single time. They are like weave poles: train them a bit so the dogs learn them and love them, but it is definitely not good to do 10,000 reps 🙂
Looking at the video – super nice session! One thing that is developing is that your cues are really sounding different – not just because the words are different, but the pitch/volume/rhythm is distinct. I believe that really helps the dogs!
Sequence 1: great!! Lovely connection!
>I still follow the send to jump 4 with a big arm. 😣
Yes, you arm moved forward on the send at :14 but it happened after you connected and sent her. Your arm followed her nose (and the physics of movement caused it to go a little high but she had no questions). The trouble starts when we fling our arms ahead of the dogs without connection, and we look ahead at the jump. In this case, you had connection on the send and your arm moved with her: worked great!
You had less arm at 1:12 but also more decel as you were trying to keep the arm down, so I think the arm movement was actually more effective on a more extended line like this (as long as you keep that connection as you begin the send cue). Let me know if that names sense of it I need more coffee to explain it 🙂
At the end of the sequence:
She is super fast through tunnels so you will want to get to the BC sooner by calling her sooner – don’t wait to finish the blind to call her, you can call her as soon as she is approaching the tunnel. I thought you physically hustled to position beautifully, but you can add calling sooner to give her a heads-up that there is a cue to look for on tunnel exit.Good job on the RC at 1:18, being patient even when she fell (poor girlie!). The RC line was good and nice job driving her to last jump.
She is probably banking the tunnel up high, so with the tunnel bags down low on the ground, she is slipping higher up. You might need to get some of the wide straps perhaps, to help keep the higher part of the tunnel secure too.
And great job getting her pumped up for a last run – that is what her brain will sleep on 🙂 Yay! She is really understanding the pinwheel line so you can send her earlier (starting at landing of the jump after the tunnel) so you can be done with it before she takes off for the pinwheel jump. You were a stride late (she was taking off before you were finished with the blind) so the turn was a stride wide, but your exit line connection at 2:51 was GREAT so she got right back on the line and your spin at 2:52 was fantastic! That got a nice tight turn and put you miles ahead of her. Super!!!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! This went super well!
Great job adjusting the tunnel threadle cue so that you got rid of rotating too much (pulling her in and out with your feet rotating).
Rotating in and out can actually result in the off course when you send her back out, if you are not n the perfect line – this is what happened at :07 and :35 and 1:15 because when you rotated back out, it totally cued the entry of the tunnel she went to.
You moved over on a better line at 1:03 and 1:28 and so that got the correct tunnel entry even with the rotation.
When you were on that line and didn’t really rotate like 1:45 , she had the best line – not too much pull away then push back, not too much foot rotation, she was lovely.
The rep at 2:08 was GREAT – not real foot rotation, just clear cues and great line. She did a great job!
You had really good timing of the “left” verbals there, and also on the reps where you where you didn’t want the tunnel at all (no problem, she never looked at the tunnel on those). She read your shoulders and feet great especially at 2:59 – great position and great job with the left verbal there!! I am using the word “great” a lot here but it is true LOL!!!!
I love how she did all the cues at 4:04, getting the correct obstacle each time through with no questions. Well done!
And yay for you for the blind on the last rep! You used your position on sending into the pinwheel very effectively so you didn’t have to sprint to it, and she could see the turn was coming. Then you were able to get the blind finished and re-connected as she was in the air and your line was very clear, so she had a lovely turn.
Her only question on the bigger sequences was when you were sending her straight to the tunnel again – she checked in a little “ARE YOU SURE?!?!” Haha!! But that was likely due to not being able to fully accelerate yet and relying on verbals to override your steady pace. That question will go away when your knee is cleared for full running.
One thought on this sequence you can try: You can also wrap her to her left on 1 – it is a sweeter line to 2, and adds challenge to ignore the off course jump.
I realize if you have AKC in your future with Roux, you will want to practice this skill (all the skills, really) at a 2 stride distance (21 feet approximately between the tunnel exit and the jumps, and center-to-center on the jump). She is doing 4 strides here and it is fast and fun, but I don’t want either of you to be surprised at how quickly the obstacles will appear on the line when the distances are shorter because it changes your timing and her mechanics for jumping.
I am always too lazy to move the tunnel, so you can move the jumps in closer to it!
Great job here!
Tracy
Good morning and welcome!!! Feel free to ask as many questions as you like 🙂
I am excited that you are here and I am looking forward to seeing Sadie Mae! She sounds adorable and super fun too! I am a big fan of mixes too, and you will see several mixes as the demo dogs here 🙂
I am glad the pre-games are going well! because she is young and small, you can do them sitting on the ground or on something low to make it easier. She doesn’t have to be perfect – we are looking for “pretty good” and “roughly right” for now 🙂
>>How often (times per day) should we be working on training/games?>>
Once, maybe twice a day, for about 2 minutes each time. Training is mentally tiring for baby dogs so we don’t want to overdo it. And, you can do different things each session to keep the variety in the training (which keeps it fun!) One thing you will notice here is that latent learning is powerful. What I mean by that is your session might go well, or it might be bad (it happens, I try to show all my bloopers LOL!) and it is fine – but the real learning happens when they sleep. So we give the pups a day or two before repeating a game, and the learning really blossoms. It is like they practice it in their dreams LOL! But it is really their brain doing all the work during sleep 🙂
Have fun!
Tracy
Good morning and welcome!! I am excited to see him now that he is all ready to roll! And I am sure we can add teenager twists for him too, to spice things up 🙂 His pre-games look awesome! When he was a baby puppy, these were much harder. I bet he is going to fly through the Baby Level of the games and we can really focus on the Advanced levels.
Have fun!
TracyHello and welcome back!!! It has been way too long – I miss the New England agility community!!! I’m excited to see your baby Cocker – sounds like her name is appropriate and she’s going to be FUN!
Tracy
Good morning!
> I thought he did such great stuff, I wanted you to see as much as possible.>
You can go over 5 minutes to get all the great stuff in 🙂 He looked fabulous!
>> After the video cuts off my teacher asked about a collection cue for the jump he kept taking.>>
Perfect!
>I have a collection cue, Choo choo choo! I forget all my new words since this is the first dog I’m actually using them with.>
He does know a lot of words! When you walk the courses, remind yourself to use them (and ask your instructor to remind you too LOL!)
>> He did much better when I actually communicated with him. What a novel idea!>>
Ha! It is weird when that happens LOL!!!
>I love that he’s not running around the entire arena once I take the leash off which is what he did when we first started going to class. We have a long way to go but we’ve come a long way already! It’s fun to see.>
I agree! It was so fun to watch him!
>We have another local trial this weekend so he will get some more pattern game work.>
Perfect! Keep me posted!
Tracy
Good morning!
>Too much emphasis on weaves??? Me??? NEVER!!! 🤣🤣🤣 Yes I am obsessed with them.>>
Do you know the movie Field Of Dreams with this famous quote: “If you build it, he will come”. ? I remember that when I am bringing young dogs into the trial ring: If I build it (the love for being in the ring, happy relaxed confidence in that environment), then everything else will come (hard behaviors like weaves :))
So don’t worry about the weaves: they will come! They are already there. It is the confidence in the trial ring, being completely comfy there, that we will build. When you build that, the weaves will come!
>Thanks for the referral to Pawsitive Steps. It’s still a long way but probably better than the drive to Annapolis.>
It is about 3 hour from me, but she is one of the best diagnosticians I have ever met. I also highly recommend Skylos but I don’t think they are any closer 🙂
>> On a better note glad to hear that the only thing tougher is the startline. At least that one is going well for now. I will try to pay more attention to his behavior there too though.>>
He is doing well there for sure! And we can look at it and see if there is anything else we can do to help him out even more.
The ring entry and start line in FAST looked great. He was focused, engaged, and explosive on the release.
>>there was a lot of bouncing but at least you can see our warmup. Not a ton of focus in the ring but it was our first run.>
Actually, he was incredibly focused 🙂 All of the jumping up or coming off lines were due to connection breaks 🙂 When you were connected with low arms and looking at him as you moved? Perfection! You can see that from jump 1 to the teeter. Lovely!
When he comes off lines or jumps up, that is because you were looking forward and pointing ahead with an arm, while the rest of your body turns away. So the info is no longer clear and he doesn’t know what to do. You can see it at :46 off the teeter, :51 on the send, :55, etc. Then he starts to get frustrated and he jumped up at you at 1:06, for example.
So if he comes off a line: keep going, don’t fix (the stopping reads as a punisher to him which increases frustration because he already didn’t quite know what to do). But – use that as a cue to you to connect more! Keep your hands low, make big eye contact to him especially on sends, and slow down the handling a little so you can prioritize connection. It sounds weird to say ‘slow down’ 🙂 but we all tend to be less connected when we are trying to go fast. You are already plenty fast, so making connection the number 1 thing will make the runs MUCH smoother.
On the 2nd run: I loved this!!
Nice job with the patterns he did really well outside the ring! Crowded trial!
At the entry gate: this is where the volume dial game would go. Tricks for toy or treats! And then again at the start line – it looked like he was leaping for the toy, which might be an attempt to decompress, so you can totally play with him there especially on an FEO run. And I am a big fan of tug leashes!The 1-2-3-4-5 line had a LOT of connection and he did great 🙂
It looks like he needed a turn cue before the first tunnel – he exited wide and couldn’t get back to the 6 jump on time (turf is not grippy enough to make adjustments on the flat in time).
Massive click/treat to you for continuing though, and making lovely connection – look at how well he got back on the line! And then your connection was gorgeous on the next line too! Excellent line of motion, low arms, clear connection. He was relaxed and not frustrated, so he did great in the weaves, got his reward.
Then I about died of happiness when you did that lovely reset to set up the ending line. GORGEOUS! The handling to the last jump was not totally clear to him (he was flying and you were a little behind) but because connection was clear, he continued to work the line and did not jump up at you.
A big HIGH FIVE for this entire run – you were building the field of dreams on this one!!! And he felt great after the run too, fully engaged and playing with you <3
Compare your handling on this run to your handling on the FAST run and I think you will see how the low arms, big connection, smooth motion works wonderfully for him 🙂
>>This week we’ve been catching up on Tricks and the Volume Dial.>
Perfect! You can also add in the Find My Face game (package 2) because it will help teach him what to do when you break connection. Yes, I will bug you to always be perfectly connected but we are human so sometimes we are not connected 🙂 The Find My Face game builds up to the dogs understanding to keep working the line and not jump up at us when we disconnect 🙂
>> I did some Volume Dial video. I do see varying degrees of excitement in the tricks we do. I did these with food. Toys will definitely turn the volume to up to 11. I know we’re going to want that but to get there I’ve got to figure out how to teach a toy release. >>
Yes, we want the volume to go to 11!! For now, trade the toy for a cookie. Tug tug tug, say your out cue, and then put a cookie on his nose. It is the easiest way to begin getting the toy release and there is no conflict. Then it is easy to fade the cookie lure and it becomes a powerful cue (sometimes I give the toy back after getting the release too) There are other ways to do it but the cookie trade is the fastest and also produces long-lasting results.
>We have some serious work on Remote Reinforcement ahead too. I’ll be watching that video tonight!>
Perfect! I think he will do great with that 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning! All the West Coast folks were talking about the wind!
I think this session went super well – lots of success with the leash and remote reinforcement and the mini sequences. And I think it was great to use food too – it is high value for her and also, leash-then-food is exactly what she will see at the end of an agility run at a trial.
Yes, leashing and unleashing in high arousal is part of the puzzle for a lot of dogs. I am happy to find a competition leash that works for them in terms of their preferences for getting it on and off. I had one made for the whippet so it can unclip and fall away at the beginning, then at the end of the run he could slide his pointy head through. He now loves his leash, so there is an added toy in the ring.
She did well with the leash tugging! It opens up a whole new world of shopping!!! And she was fantastic about engaging when the leash comes off. I love how easily that is going to become a cue for her to look at you and be ready to work when that leash comes off.
It also opens up a whole new world of remote reinforcement – so continue to be sure that the leash is laying around a lot and you don’t always cue her to go to it, so she doesn’t anticipate going it 🙂 I thought you were really good about sometimes marking to go to the leash, sometimes praising and not sending her to it immediately, etc. That way it does not become a target, but it can remain a strong motivator.
She was highly successful and I do think it was providing a little challenge as a toy behind her, which is also great for her remote reinforcement understanding. At 2:44 you can see her take a moment to do the full body shake, which as you know if often a reset or small stress response. Nothing to worry about because she did great, but interesting to observe that it was a little hard!
While I am thinking of it – are there any classes or seminars you can take her too? The goal would be to create more positive experiences in different places. It is hard to find appropriate young dog seminars because so many of them are “triple spinning backside layer layer threadle threadle wrap wrap wrap” which really is NOT what I want the baby dogs to be doing. When I go to seminars, I put my youngsters in a level or two below what I think they can actually do, so they can enjoy fast & fun sequences while working through the challenges of being in a new environment.
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Good morning!
I hear the winds were BAD!!! I am glad he was unaffected by it!
He looked great in this little sequence, good boy!!!! Yes, there is more speed there but he was thinking A LOT – I prefer the thoughtful approach with these youngsters. As he get more experienced, his speed will really blossom.
Using the magic box 😁 in training is great! It adds a predictability to reinforcement that will help at trials. And to help build speed – you can say your marker to go back to the magic box at varying points in the run. A variable schedule is a powerful motivator and can maximize speed throughout the run! So you can do it after 2 obstacles, 10 obstacles, 3 obstacles, 12 obstacles, etc – at any point (especially over jumps because we humans don’t reward them enough), say the marker and run to the magic box 🙂
How did he do with the games before & after the sequences?
Great job here!
TracyWelcome!!!!!! Spotlight is a cool little dude 🙂 I know you’ve already been doing fun stuff with him, so we can add higher level crazy stuff to play with to!
Have fun!
TracyHello and welcome!!!
How has it been 4 years since Sly’s class, when he is still a puppy? LOL!!! Time moves too fast!!!
And I am excited to meet Millie 🙂 She sounds fun!!! We have had 3 or 4 Berners come through in the past 2 years and they’ve all be so fun!! Small and sporty and smart and FAST!!!!Tracy
That’s funny!!! I am glad you got less licking 🙂 The target will be faded fairly quickly, so I don’t think he will be into licking it. For the regular hand target, you can try holding it a little higher with your palm facing downwards, so he has to lift his chin a little to target (but don’t hold it so high that he has to lift his feet).
Keep me posted!
TracyHi! Thanks for the class video!
Agility in dirt is definitely more distracting! I was cool to see him get more engaged and focused as you started the patterns at the beginning!
He is faster here than at home – probably because he was more pumped up! He was also resilient to handler bloopers 🙂 like at 1:29 when he was not sure which end of the tunnel to go into so he found your face 😁 then went into the tunnel. No sniffing or concern, just continuing to work the course. Yay!
Pattern games in the bleachers looked strong! There were some good distractions in terms of smells, visuals, noises – he did great!
>>When we got to our 2nd run on the standard side, he was having himself a ball. >>
I love how he instructor was loving him up before his run on the standard side then he ignored her when it was time to get to work 🙂
Because he was zipping around offering obstacles on the way to the start, you can either keep him on leash til you get there, or have him do tricks as you move to the jump – we want him to be feeling really good but also don’t want the habit of taking obstacles when the leash comes off 🙂
I thought he was actually spot on in his focus and reading of the handling. It is harder to feel it in the moment and it is easy to see on video 🙂 so if he goes past something or off course, just go with it, reward, then reset somewhere earlier in the course so you can show him the handling with more clarity.
For example, at 3:25 he didn’t take the jump before the teeter. There was a big break in connection so he can of the line (might have looked like the beginning of a blind) so he came of the line to you. Plus, with the big visuals of the dog walk and tunnel behind you, it makes sense that he might have expected a blind to them when you turned forward. But then when you showed connection and cued the teeter, he got right on it. Good boy!
>>I probably should have handled the teeter differently, ie not run, >>
I thought it was the right thing to do and good job rewarding his passionate teeter performance, especially after fixing the line to it. It was not quite criteria but he was trying really hard to nail it and was not quite balanced enough, kind of landing himself in the dirt which probably didn’t feel great. But he drove up the board brilliantly! And didn’t do it again, so it was good to reward it as a “great try, dude” moment.
The end of the sequence here had some questions –
You had another disconnect at 4:18 which he read as a blind and sped over to the frame (which is also really high value, probably :))When you reset him at 4:26, the handling did show the line to the frame (he would need a collection cue to turn tight on the jump before it in order to not take the line to the frame) so he was correct there.
Bearing in mind how hard his brain was working to tune out the distractions and also read the handling cues, I think it is fine to assume an error on course is handling-based not pug-based LOL!! So you can reward the next obstacle, then reset the sequence by putting yourself ahead of him so he can see the clearer handling. At 4:35 you were a little behind and he was correct to read that as a line to the tunnel.
It is all hard to feel in the moment when running the young dogs but video tells us 🙂 so you can totally assume errors are yours and not his, and reward the line he ends up on before going back to reset it with clearer info. And if we look at the video and decide that nope, it was actually *his* error? Then one or two extra cookies are no big deal 🙂 and won’t build up any unwanted behavior. But stopping or withholding reward when it is our error can cause frustration, which might show up as slowing down, engaging with distractions etc – which we don’t want because he is doing awesome here!!!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
Hi!
One more thought about the surprise factor (reward prediction errors) and learning – I can better explain by thoughts on how to approach training by saying that learning happens through the reward prediction errors and dopamine coding… and the rehearsal where there are no RPEs but there are good rehearsals and excellent motivators also produce learning, but in a different way: specifically in forming stronger neural pathways and networks, and classical conditioning. That is why rehearsals are so incredibly valuable, even if there are no reward prediction errors that produce dopamine spikes and coding.
Let me know if that makes sense 🙂
>>so was thinking train fusion second so put scent on after traned IN Synch or put in plastic sealed bag and pull out when train.
>Yes, that might be the best bet but also, the scent does not have to be on you – it can be placed near or in the training area in the beginning stages. Having it on you might muddy the water at first and you can make it more specific to certain memories if it is in the proximity and not on you. I am not sure that having it in a sealed plastic bag is enough to conceal the scent – you might need to ask folks who do scent work how they conceal the scent when not in use.
Also, having it *not* on you will be useful for In Synch, and if you ever do scent pairing with her you can use a different scent.
Another option is to only use a specific food reward when doing scent memory pairing – something with a distinct scent that only gets used in conjunction with that training. Smoked salmon is a good example. Will it work? I don’t know but it will be fun to play with!
On the first video:
The line up between your feet is going well in terms of getting into position. She did best with holding the stay when you stepped away slowly 🙂
The pattern games are going well. She did a great job with find your face – rather than start it from the stationary up and down game, start it from the back and forth game where you are both moving (it will be a game on course where you are both moving so you will want to start that from the beginning here). One other thing to remember that she does not have to come in front of you, so be sure to peripherally keep half an eyeball on her so you can see when she patiently looks at you even if she it as your side or behind you.
On the 2nd video:
>>The toy plus a jump was harder and took ages to get a toy release.>>
Yes, the jump was harder because the conditioned response there does not involve the line up between your feet yet. So you can do the line up with something less stimulating than a jump – maybe a wing, or maybe some object that is not even related to agility. When she can do that, you can add back a jump but be further from it so that it is easier.
When arousal is higher, remember to trade the toy for a treat immediately after saying the release cue. That will help make getting the toy back more automatic and faster, plus it helps with arousal regulation.
>But then had trouble settling her again – miscommunication as to whether she was to take the jump or not>
Yes, she was confused about what to do with the line up because it was new and very close to the jump, then when she offered the sit and was wrong, she got frustrated and was jumping up.
Using the food lure for the line up was useful! That should be the first priority in new situations.
Separately from a jump, you will also want to work on the food lure for the line up with the toy in your hand.
Then as you put it all together (line up, toy, jump) starting further from the jump will really help.
One more thought:
If she is leaping up to face-level during the pattern game, delay the next reward til she is fully on the ground and standing still for a few second. We don’t want her version of offering engagement in the pattern game to include leaping up to your face. Think of it as building in arousal regulation to the pattern game, not just orienting towards you.
Great job here!
Tracy
